


You're A Nightmare (But I Love It)

by allineedisaquill



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Flirting, M/M, Teasing, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 03:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20885444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allineedisaquill/pseuds/allineedisaquill
Summary: Somewhere along the way, he’d come to actuallylikethe tit-for-tat they had begun.





	You're A Nightmare (But I Love It)

Julian refused to accept it at first. 

He recognised it; the way his senses heightened and he became acutely aware of the other man whenever he entered the same room. Steadfast denial followed the recognition, however, and every day spent sharing the same four walls as Thomas Thorne quickly became his own personal form of limbo torture.

It started with the bickering, the quips, the comments flung at each other as they mocked the other’s work, life, _ anything_. Julian had never held any actual malice in those words, preferring simple teasing and any excuse to make a dull day more lively with little jibes here and relatively harmless pot-stirring there. He was good at it. It was safe.

What he wasn’t so good at was keeping his cool when his off-handed japery morphed into actual _affection_. It strayed from safe and familiar to far more dangerous territory. Somewhere along the way, he’d come to actually _like_ the tit-for-tat they had begun. He looked forward to when Thomas would fix him with a look of petulant disdain, brow raised, and scoff. He liked it even more when his sharp and melodramatic tongue would hit him with his familiar snark. 

Julian refused to accept it, but it was starting to get the better of him. The last time it happened, he had simply stared for several seconds while his brain helpfully supplied a visual of him dragging Thomas in by his stupid flouncy shirt and kissing his expression right off him. Thomas had taken his silence as a win, which only doubled Julian’s frustrations.

He’d been faced with scandals, speeches, and scathing headlines. He’d made it through every meeting, every press circus. He’d _ died _ for pity’s sake, and been doomed to eternal afterlife wandering the same grounds. Yet Julian was faced with these feelings, these inescapable thoughts, and suddenly he wanted to run. He wanted to fold his cards and scream; being dead was suddenly not the worst of his problems, and it was all because of an over-the-top poet in tights.

“How the mighty fall,” Julian grumbled to himself before he dropped to the chaise lounge in the little nook of the library. The very way in which he lowered himself to it was theatrical enough to remind him of the man once again. He sighed and let his head fall back over the arm of the couch.

He would have jumped out of his skin had he been alive, for he was suddenly staring at the upside-down image of Thomas. His body jerked at the shock before he went lax again and he rolled his eyes. 

“Go away, I’m busy,” he said coolly. _ Excellent. Good nonchalant facade. _

In no clear hurry to heed Julian’s dismissal, Thomas snorted and took up his usual prim perch on the arm. Julian had no choice but to move his head to make room and he wanted to swat him away; could the man not sit _ anywhere _ without some sort of show?

“Busy brooding,” Thomas said from somewhere above him.

Julian’s face twisted and he sputtered. “What are you wittering on about? Don’t you have someone else you can go and annoy?”

Thomas simply continued, his voice a sing-song tease. “As the resident expert, I know brooding when I see it, Julian. You are most _ definitely _brooding.”

He hated that Thomas, for all his ignorance in some areas, was frustratingly perceptive in others. He swore the man could see right through him, like his lifeless apparition was nothing more than smoke and mirrors, like Thomas could pick each layer of him apart with nothing more than a once-over. He’d spent years wearing half a suit, but Thomas made him feel the most _ bare _.

“Julian?” Thomas prompted, concerned. He had clearly been expecting more of their usual routine, and Julian had only met him with more silence. “Fine,” he continued. “Have it your way, but if you must keep up this distant act and deprive me of the little entertainment to spare around here, you can at least tell me what on _ Earth _has you so distracted. It’s unlike you.”

Julian’s lip curled, his brows pulling together. When he sat up suddenly, his tie and suit jacket swirling around him, Thomas jumped in surprise and stared with wide, brown eyes. 

“It’s you, you berk!” He announced loudly, throwing his arm forwards in a half-hearted accusatory point. 

Thomas looked affronted. “Me? What did_ I _do?”

“You know!” Julian said. “Winding me up, making your jokes, being completely impossible.” He stood poised with his arms folded, a rare sign of true defensiveness, clearly unhappy at his own outburst. 

He went straight from anger to disbelief when Thomas lifted himself from the lounge arm and began what he could only describe as a_ slow saunter _ towards him. Gone was the feigned look of innocence; the man had the absolute nerve to smirk, warm eyes alight with mischief in the dimly-lit space of the library.

“Well, well,” Thomas said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you like our little game. It certainly seems to have you all kinds of vexed.” He ended the sentence with a fingertip just barely pressed to Julian’s jacket-covered breast, and their slight difference in height allowed him to peer up at the taller man through thick lashes. 

Julian swallowed audibly. “Don’t push it, Thorne,” he warned.

“But I clearly push your buttons so _ well_,” Thomas replied, pressing his fingertip just hard enough to make Julian sway. His smirk bloomed into a self-indulgent smile. “Does this mean I win? I think it does.” 

When he began to move away, he was pulled swiftly back in by the waist. “I don’t think so, do you?” Julian asked, eyebrow raised.

“There it is,” Thomas said triumphantly, letting the material of Julian’s tie slide between his fingers. He had his desired outcome. “I win.” 

“Damn it,” Julian growled under his breath, and Thomas met him easily halfway when he ducked his chin and caught the younger man’s mouth with his own.

They kissed in the dark recess of the library and the whole scene was reminiscent of Julian’s university days. Back then, though, Julian had all the time in the world to explore. Here, Julian wanted frenzied and fast, like he had to soak it all up at once. His fingers got lost in a dark mess of hair, every part of him warm, and he relished each little moan and whimper against his mouth where they parted, breathing hot and fast, shared.

Thomas was keen for the sure touches and hard slant of lips on his; he gave as much as he got, hands slipped beneath Julian’s jacket to the long expanse of his back. His blunt nails dug into shirt-covered skin.

Tightly wound and burning up, Julian let his large hands curl around Thomas’s slender waist until they were pressed closer than they’d been to anyone in an achingly long time. 

“You win,” he muttered against Thomas’s lips. 


End file.
